Caroline Nassif

I Aspire to Walk: Egyptian Working Women Defining Threats on Cairo's Public Space Caroline Nassif

It is argued that women are exposed to higher violence in the private domain than in the public and that it is men who are more prone to violence in the public sphere. However, official statistics do not register the violence and intimidations women encounter everyday in urban public spaces. A clear and known (by now) reason behind this, is women?s embarrassment to report, especially when it is a man they are going to report to. Hence the continuous violence against women, which includes intimidation, groping, sexual comments and harassment, threats, and other nuisance crimes with sexual undertones, goes unnoticed and under-reported. In order to grant women more mobility, safety alone as a resource is not enough, programs tackling harassment in public spaces must work on changing the norms (doxa) related to women?s reputation and the discourse on prudent versus imprudent and decent versus indecent woman.